Brand New
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Sort of a crossover with "Radio Free Roscoe". Jackson Torrance comes to Degrassi having been kicked out of his last school. Jake Epstein in eyeliner, does it get any better?
1. Chapter 1

Jackson Torrance. Big dark eyes accentuated with black eyeliner. Short nails painted black. Choker necklace made of rope and beads around his neck. Guitar always near him, usually cradled in his arms. School was nothing. Relationships were nothing. Music was what mattered to him.

Kicked out of another school, the 'Radio Free Roscoe' school. Fighting. Not going to class. Being a general fuck up. His father read the letter of his expulsion with tired resignation, looked with veiled hostility at his son's make-up and outfits and 'give a shit' attitude. How his right hand itched to hit him, but he wouldn't. The left hand would always find out.

Now he was starting at a new school, the Degrassi Community School. Big deal. It would be the same as all the others. He wouldn't fit in, he'd not even try to fit in. He didn't care about the kids there or their little cliques, their bitter worried little lives. He had other things to think about.

Ashley Kerwin noticed him first thing. His eyeliner making his eyes look dramatic, somehow. There was a certain cockiness about him that she was drawn to. She looked down and smiled to herself, wondering who he was, why he was here. She noticed the black nail polish as he shut his locker door. None of the other boys here were like him, not even Craig.

His first day was a series of skipped classes, hiding out in the music room to work on his songs. Eating lunch alone. Big deal. He was fine with that. Watching jocks and cheerleaders drift by, caught up in their own currents. That was okay. He was caught up in his.

"Sorry," Ashley said, bumping into him on purpose as they left English class. He looked down at this girl in a punk goth T-shirt and spiky hair with red highlights. He liked girls, liked kissing them and touching them. He just didn't really like the attachments they developed, the constant attention like some delicate plant in a hothouse, that attention that they required.

"That's okay," he said, and smiled his slow sleepy smile, and she noticed the length of his lashes, the color of his lips, a natural red. She saw the guitar slung over his shoulder. It was older and more beat up than Craig's guitar. The calluses on his fingertips proved to her that he was more serious about playing it.

"Hey, uh, are you new here?" she said, knowing full well that he was brand new.

"Yeah. Today's my first day," He seemed so confidant somehow, so sure of himself that her breath was taken away. Who was this kid? Where did he come from?

"I'm Ashley," she said, offering up her name like a small sacrifice.

"Hi, Ashley. I'm Jackson,"

Jackson. A last name for a first name, so strong sounding. Different. She squinted her eyes at him, nodded and smiled again, walked away.

At home Jackson's father was in a foul temper.

"Jackson!" he said when he heard his son enter the house.

"Uh, yeah, dad?" he said, carefree. That little shit. His father balled his hands into fists and fought with himself for control.

"The school called. You skipped three classes! What in the hell are you doing? This is your third high school. Do you want to go for a fourth?" He glared at him, staring through the smug expression, the calm eyes. Nothing rattled this kid and that rattled him. How he would like to rattle him.

"No. I guess not," Jackson conceded, swinging his guitar around and plucking out a few notes.

"Don't play that guitar while I'm trying to talk to you," his father said, and Jackson played a few more defiant notes and then set the guitar down.

"What the hell are you thinking? It's not that difficult. Go to class. Don't beat anybody up. Think you can handle that?" So the sarcasm had slipped in, and he shook his fists by his side. He didn't know that he'd end up having a kid that was so infuriating.

"Dad, it'll be fine. Don't worry. I won't skip any more classes, okay?" His father stared at him. He was lying. Not even lying, he just didn't give a shit about it and couldn't even pretend to care. He'd skip class. He'd fight if the urge took him to do it. He was a kid that lived by his own rules.


	2. Chapter 2

Ashley couldn't help looking for him the next day at school. Jackson. She couldn't get over his dark eyes with the black eyeliner. Someone new.

Leaning against her locker, watching the door. It didn't take long for him to come sauntering through it, the guitar over his shoulder. She couldn't help contrasting him to Craig. They did look similar, they had the same basic features. But Jackson's hair was darker and longer and his nose was narrower. And he always carried the guitar.

"Hi," Ashley said as he walked by. He glanced back, stopped, and walked over to her.

"Hi. Ashley, right?" he said, and she smiled, nodded. From the corner of her eye she could see Craig and Spinner watching her talk to Jackson. Good. Let Craig stare holes through her, she didn't care.

The bell rang and kids scattered, and Ashley turned to go.

"What are you doing now?" Jackson said, not moving just because a bell had rung.

"Uh, going to class?" Ashley said, a little smile on her face.

"Want to go somewhere else?" he said, and she felt torn. Her inner neurotic didn't like to miss class or assignments or anything. She liked to fulfill all her obligations. But she could smell the cologne Jackson wore and she could see how pale his skin was in contrast to his dark hair and she liked the black gothic nail polish on his short nails. So she shrugged and agreed to go with him.

They left by the side door and headed to the park. Ashley tried to shake the nervous feeling, the worry nibbling at her, taking little chunks of her sanity.

"Don't worry," Jackson said, smiling. She liked his smile, and noticed that he smiled more easily than Craig did. Jackson's smile was sleepy and slow, like some cat that ate the forbidden bird.

"Isn't this better?" he said, sitting beneath a tree. She sat beside him.

"Yeah," she agreed. It was better to sit on the soft grass under the blue sky than to be cramped up in a classroom, chalk dust in her nose. It was better to sit so close to this new boy, to have his cologne in her nose.

He shook a cigarette from his pack and lit it up, turning away from her. She watched, thinking he looked cool despite the stupidity of smoking.

"You smoke?" she said, and he nodded, pulling the smoke slowly into his lungs and then breathing it out. She watched it twirl toward the sky.

"I do whatever I want to do," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

She couldn't shake the guilt from skipping a class or the belief that she'd get caught. She knew there were rule breakers, people who could do what they wanted. She also knew she wasn't one of these people. And the guilt was eating at her, and she walked quickly to her next class to make up for her transgression.

"Hey," she spun around when Craig grabbed her arm, and she could feel his tightening grip.

"What?" she said, pulling away, letting the wave of students flow around her.

"Where were you during class?" he said, his eyes squinted down and angry. His anger made her feel important. She made him feel that.

"No where," she said, not really knowing what to say.

He looked at her a second longer, and for a minute she thought she saw tears trembling in his eyes, but he blinked them away. He turned and left, walking fast, and she knew that he knew.

It crossed Jackson's mind to try and be good here, to go to class and pass and all of that so his dad wouldn't get pissed, but that would take more energy than he was willing to give to this school. Going to boring classes wasn't a part of his plan. Why should he cram his head full of stuff he had no interest in and no use for? He wanted to play the guitar, write music, write songs, and that was all he wanted to do. Couldn't his father understand this? He felt blessed to have such a singular purpose but cursed with this stage of youth, cursed with being forced to be places he didn't want to be.

He trudged off to class, not feeling any of the guilt that was plaguing Ashley. He felt unfairly consigned to this class, this school. In class he leaned his head to the side and heard the teacher's voice as only an annoying drone, like some hive of bees or hornets. His eyes glazed in boredom and resentment that he couldn't play his guitar.

Craig was trying not to feel the angry jealousy he was feeling toward the new kid. Just the sight of him made him angry.

Ashley went home from school that day feeling torn, thinking of skipping class and being rebellious and thinking of her sense of being responsible. She walked alongside Ellie, looking at the glint of her red hair in the sun, the contrast of her black clothes. She thought of the contrasts between Craig and Jackson, the difference that was hard to really define. It was something in their attitudes, something in their approach to things. She had liked Craig's jealousy, liked that he had noticed that she skipped class. She ate up that attention, fed off of it, like some parasite. She also was troubled by how much of her sense of self and self worth was tied up in these two boys. She didn't want to need them or their opinion of her in that way. She wanted to be standing on her own, independent. But sometimes she felt so opposite of independent, like one of those vine plants that needed to wrap itself around some sturdy structure to grow. She wanted to be the sturdy structure, not the clinging vine.

Skipping class, getting busted, Jackson's father growing angrier and angrier until it burst, the dam freed of its weight of water. He laid in wait for Jackson to arrive home.

He knew it right away, could sense the heavy atmosphere when he walked into the house. School called.

"Jackson," his father said, and Jackson looked up through his bangs.

"Yeah?" Despite his natural cool he was feeling nervous. He didn't like that look in his father's eyes.

There were no words for the moment. His father sat at the kitchen table with his pent up rage and his inability to express anything. What could you do with a kid like Jackson? All the punishments and all the talking to in the world wouldn't change him, he'd continue to do exactly what he wanted to do.


End file.
